1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a cooling unit wherein the component devices thereof are divided between an outdoor unit installed outdoors and an indoor unit installed indoors for disposition.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various automatic ice making machines which comprise an ice making system are used in a favorable manner in a kitchen of facilities such as a coffee shop, a restaurant or the like, wherein an evaporator led from a cooling unit comprising a compressor, a condenser, a fan motor and the like is disposed in an ice making section; ice making water is circulatingly supplied to the ice making section which is cooled by vaporized refrigerant supplied to the evaporator so as to make an ice block; and the obtained ice block is melted and released by supplying hot gas to the evaporator. For such automatic ice making machines, the type is suggested in which devices comprising the cooling unit are divided between an outdoor unit installed outdoors and an indoor unit installed indoors for arrangement (for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 6,196,007 or Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-336943).
In a cooling unit 10 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,196,007, as shown in FIG. 3, an outdoor unit 12 comprises a compressor unit 12a in which a compressor CM, a liquid receiver R and an accumulator AR are installed; and a condenser unit 12b in which a condenser CD and a fan motor FM for cooling the condenser CD are installed. An expansion means EV and an evaporator EP are installed in an indoor unit 14. The cooling unit 10 comprises a cooling circuit 16 which cools an ice making section 20 by condensing and liquefying vaporized refrigerant compressed by the compressor CM by cooling using the fan motor FM in the condenser CD located downstream, thereby evaporating liquefied refrigerant depressurized through the liquid receiver R by the expansion means EV from the evaporator EP so as to make the refrigerant vaporize, and the cooling circuit 16 then returns to the compressor CM. The cooling unit 10 further comprises a bypass circuit 18 for warming the evaporator EP so as to induce the ice block made in the ice making section 20 to be separated and released from the ice making section 20 by supplying high-temperature and pressure vaporized refrigerant compressed by the compressor CM directly to the evaporator EP as hot gas without passing through the condenser CD and the expansion means EV. Specifically, the outdoor unit 12 and the indoor unit 14 are communicably connected by the following three refrigerant pipe-lines 22: a liquid pipe 22a connecting the liquid receiver R to the expansion means EV; a gas pipe 22b connecting the evaporator EP to the compressor CM through the accumulator AR; and a hot gas pipe 22c for supplying hot gas to the evaporator EP from the compressor CM without passing through the condenser CD and the expansion means EV.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2003-336943 discloses, as shown in FIG. 4, a cooling unit 30 in which a liquid receiver R is installed on the side of an indoor unit 14. The cooling unit 30 can diverge liquefied refrigerant introduced from the condenser CD of the outdoor unit 12 to the indoor unit 14 through the liquid pipe 22a by a three-way valve 24 so as to supply it to either the liquid receiver R or a bypass pipe 19. Specifically, switching the three-way valve 24 to the liquid receiver R side supplies liquefied refrigerant to the evaporator EP through an expansion means EV so as to form a cooling circuit 16 for cooling an ice making section 20. On the contrary, switching the three-way valve 24 to the bypass pipe 19 side supplies liquefied refrigerant to the evaporator EP without passing through the expansion means EV so as to form a bypass circuit 18 for warming the ice making section 20. It is to be noted that the same device as in the cooling unit 10 of U.S. Pat. No. 6,196,007 has the same number in FIG. 4.